--- Ma0219i164A’s perspective---

---Friday, 20th of July, 2683 Terran Calendar---

---Southeastern England---

I am currently projecting holograms into numerous rooms in my Children’s Home.

I have often thought about buying a droid to play with the kids with… but it just doesn’t make financial sense… even if there weren’t the War on!

I can rent droids to take them on daytrips, easily and cheaply enough… I do sometimes wish they could have a bit more personal contact from their primary carer, though!

As it is, my employees have to do most of the regular duties that require physical hands… I’m relegated to a food dispenser, a medicine dispenser and a ghostly playmate to the kids, most days.

Just as I’m thinking about that, a young couple show up in the hall outside my front door, the man tall, bulky, sharp faced, brown eyed and dark haired, the woman average height, wiry, soft faced, green eyed and with scarlet red hair.

I open it for them before they have a chance to wonder about how to ring the bell that isn’t there(!)

“Esme Reid, Oskar Taylor… please come in, I been expectin’ you! Up the stairs and first door on your left!” I say, musically, over the front door’s speaker.

The two look mildly perturbed for a moment before recovering and walking inside.

They climb the stairs to the mezzanine landing, take a left and come to the office which I project myself inside, 0.04 seconds before they open the door.

“Come in, sit down…” I smile, gesturing to the sofa with every aspect of my tone and bodylanguage managed to be as warm and inviting as possible.

“Great view!” says the Scottish accented girl, distractedly looking out of the window as she and her babydaddy take their seats on the couch.

“Yeah, we’re on the 112th floor here, so all windows have a pretty spectacular view of Central London… South facin’, too! Helps with gettin’ nat’ral light, for the kids makin’ enough vitamin D… also keeps the electric bill down since we don’t need so much artificial light…”

The girl gives me a nervous smile, the boy just gives me an expressionless stare.

Walking my avatar over to the armchair, I sit down, facing them at an angle.

Of course, I don’t need to sit and I don’t need to face them to see them but, for their comfort, it’s better to do it this way.

“So… lovely to meet you two!” I smile “My name’s Maia, as I’m sure you could guess(!)”

“Nice to meet you…” says the girl, anxiously.

“A pleasure.” states the boy, his tone flat but not brusque.

“D’you mind if I ask who you heard about me from?” I ask.

“Our… drill instructor… Simone Sands?” offers the redhead.

“Oh! Sissy!?” I ask, happily “Sissy sent you here? How is she!?”

A light, mirthful smile touches the girl’s lips and even the boy has a moment of reduced dourness in his expression.

“I’m sorry… Sissy?” she asks.

“Yeah, that’s right…” I confirm “…that’s what everyone called her, growin’ up.”

“I just… I can’t… it just doesn’t suit the WO Sands I know, at all!” she giggles.

“Yeah… it is a bit cute for her… Stopped introducin’ herself by it when she hit about 12… How’s she doin’?”

“Oh, she’s fine… I assume you know about her… eye, right?” she says, pointing to her own right eye to represent Sissy’s replacement.

“Yeah, yeah… that’s a few years old, now… Got her sent home from the Front… I’m just grateful it weren’t much worse!”

The two of them wince slightly and, inwardly, I correct the erroneous pathway that led me to being so insensitive to these two (ultimately headed to the Front themselves) before I continue “So… why don’t you two tell me a bit about you?”

“Oh… well… My name’s Esme Reid and this is Oskar Taylor, you know… I’m from Scotland, he’s from Dogger… We’re both 18, we met at bootcamp about 8 months ago… didn’t like eachother, at first…”

“More accurately…” corrects the deep voiced, muscular boy, in a level tone “…you didn’t like me… I would have been fairly neutral toward you if not for your antagonism.”

“Shush!… It’s in the past, now!” giggles the redhead, playfully, before she resumes “He… erm… he saved me from an extremely bad situation I was in and, after that, it wasn’t too long before our relationship had done a complete 180°!… We got together and… we did what young people do when they’re together(!)… Then, about a week and a half ago, I was getting my final physical before we shipped out and, before I knew what was happening, I was being arrested as a malinger!… Turns out I was 9 weeks pregnant!… I was none the wiser!… Masquerade cycle pause rejection… Incredibly rare phenomenon that they had to get, like, a bloody professor in to double check!… Right now, we’re both reprieved from deployment until I’ve recovered from labour… We’ve accepted spots on the Officer track, to keep us busy in the meantime, but we haven’t started that yet… and, yeah… we’re looking into options for how our baby is going to be looked after when we’re not there…”

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“And, hence, you came to me!” I smile, gesturing to my holographic body.

She smiles and nods… her man moves his head in the vaguest suggestion of a nod(!)

“Well… lookin’ after kids is what we do here(!) Buuuut…”

Their faces fall slightly at the elongated qualifier.

I quickly move on “…I do have to point out that, while we try and give ’em all the love and care they could want… it isn’t really a patch on havin’ a family!… I hate to have to ask but… I assume you’ve already exhausted all family options?”

The girl who’s done almost all of the talking so far shakes her head, her expression grim, and answers “No good, I’m afraid… No surviving parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins… and we’re both only children… I spent 14 to 18 in an orphanage, in Stranraer, and… I would definitely like to have sent him to Pinehill but…” she trails off.

“But Pinehill is a Home for older children and ain’t equipped for dealing with infant care?” I provide.

Shocked, the girl answers “Uh… yes!… How d’you…?”

“I’m an AI… and one quite actively engaged with the care of children, Ms Reid(!)… I’m quite up on the particulars of residential care organisations, especially in the North European Isles!” I smile.

“I see…” she hesitates before finishing “…the only serious contender was my friend Tamsin and her new husband… They’re uplifts so no worry of them being drafted…. I’m almost certain they’d’ve said yes if we’d asked but… I don’t know… They’re both so young… I feel like I’d ruin their lives if I foisted a baby on them at this stage!”

I nod “That’s understandable… and destitute biologicals typic’ly make poor carers… Don’t matter how much you love the child in your charge if you ain’t able to keep the lights on, put food on the table, keep the roof from leakin’ and keep them in clothes and blankets.”

She frowns slightly before answering “I guess so…”

Changing the subject, I ask “Would you two like to see something interesting?”

“Erm… sure.” shrugs the redhead.

I point to the wall, where a panel opens, revealing a clear tube of liquid.

“Oh, wooow!” exclaims the girl.

“Yeah… she’s a tiny bit further along than you are… a Neanderthal… about 13 weeks, 8.2cm long, 47g, ten fully formed fingers, ten fully formed toes…”

“She doesn’t have a name?” she asks, her tone more confirmatory than questioning.

“She don’t… that scrunkly little bungus ain’t gonna get to choose what goes on her ID till she’s 6 years old!… It is always a bit awkward… raising resurrectees and uplifts, just havin’ to call ’em ‘baby’ and ‘you’ until they’re old enough to pick out a name for ’emselves…”

“Never really understood why we make uplifts and resurrectees choose their names… I’m also a bit surprised we’re still doing resurrection, with the War on… I’d’ve thought the government wouldn’t want the extra mouths to feed!”

I smile and, my tone instructive not chastising, I answer “At this point, lettin’ ’em choose their own names is more tradition than anything else… The idea was, origin’ly, that it was somethin’ of theirs… We may be able to bring them back but… all their stories, all their languages, their cultures… all that’s gone, unrecoverable… lost under the sands o’time!… What we could give ’em, though, is the right to choose what we call ’em… that’s why we created the list of every pronounceable word that isn’t a name in any major language and, obviously, weeded out all the ones that’d be a bit to close to profanity in any major language… No English Neanderthals called ‘Fakk’, no French ones called ‘Murd’(!)… In theory, resurrectees can call ’emselves anything they want from the list… in practice though, bein’ 6, most of ’em get bored long before they make it to the two syllable names… when they get to the nature and/or palaeolithic themed surnames, my experience, they ask it to give ’em ones at random till it spits out one they like!… Uplifts are a bit different. There’s no lost culture there so, instead, they get themed proxy culture… names tradition’ly associated with their species, curated into their lists… As for why resurrection and upliftin’ are still happenin’; the resurrectee and uplift communities might take some exception to bein’ told that their propagation needs to go on hold while we win a War that could last decades(!)”

“Oh… interesting… I suppose that all makes sense…” muses the girl.

I smile and summon a holographic notepad and pen (useful visual aids, not necessary instruments for taking notes) “So… are there any hereditary conditions I ought to know about? You mentioned that you had no surviving family? Did any of them pass from things that you might want to get your baby screened for?”

The girl starts “Uh… no… he should…”

“I’m autistic…” says the man, stating the obvious “…so was my father. There is a strong chance my son will be as well…”

Looking slightly scared, the girl attempts to minimise “But… like… you’re only a bit autistic, right Oskar? You’re not like…?”

“Miss Reid…” I interrupt with wry sternness “…you appear to be labourin’ under a misapprehension…!”

The girl looks at me, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed into an O.

I continue “This isn’t your interview, dearie… It’s mine!… If you’re comin’ at this thinkin’ you need to impress me into bein’ willin’ to take your baby, you’re thinkin’ ’bout it wrong!… There ain’t nothin’ so offputtin’ you could tell me, ’bout yourselves, ’bout your relatives, ’bout your baby, that could make me say ‘Nah… not gonna bother!’… The purpose of you comin’ here is for you to see whether this is somewhere you could happily see your son grow up… So relax, OK?… I just need the facts as they are… not as you think I would like them(!)”

She smiles nervously, gives a relieved exhale and nods.

“Right, so… Mr Taylor… would you elaborate on your family history of autism?”

For the remainder of the interview I grill them for every possible useful piece of information they might be able to give me, to allow me to raise their child optimally, I answer all their questions about the workings of the Children’s home, I explain how we’re funded, I let the girl know that, if she wants, we can clone some mammary cells from her to allow her son to drink her milk without her being present, I tell them about schooling arrangements, about the nutrition schedules, sleep schedules, exercise schedules and roster of enrichment activities etc.

Finally, I’ve almost finished when I say “Before I give you two the tour, could I just ask… have you thought about leaving your son some sort of record of you…?”

They look at eachother with an expression that says they clearly haven’t.

“It might be an idea?… You might be gone for a long time, whatever happens… I could store some footage for you and let him see it when he hits whatever age you tell me you want him to see it at?… Let him see your faces? Let him hear your voices telling your stories? Let him know where he comes from?”

“That… that sounds like a good idea…” says the girl, seeming sheepish at not having thought of it herself.

“Alright… let me know… Oh, and, I think I probably know the answer to this but… you haven’t thought of a name yet, have you?”

They both shake their heads.

“Oskar nixed ‘Ross’ and ‘Lars’, our dads’ names… I nixed ‘Oskar Jr.’…” she makes a disgusted face at the boy’s suggestion “…other than that…” she shrugs.

“OK, well… there’s no rush… Why don’t I give you two the tour?”